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on the dorsum are rusty yellow, tipped with black, with a few wholly 
black in the center of each bunch. The other bunched spines are 
black with the blunt ends white, and the spinules arising from them 
dusky. Stomata pale, narrowly oval. Venter yellowish along the 
middle. The head light brown. Thoracic legs brown; pro-legs 
lighter brown inclining to Venetian red. Length nearly two inches. 
It feeds on Oak, though it has been found on Peach and Apple. 
Gregarious, and enormous feeders. 
NOCTUIDiE.—(Owlet Moths.) 
This family is more uniform in the different groups than the pre¬ 
ceding. The head is distinct, not sunken into thorax, as in Bom- 
bycidae; palpi stout, projecting in front of the head, but not more 
than the length of the head; antennae filiform, slightly ciliate, or in 
the males of some species slightly pectinate. Body robust; thorax 
with more or less prominent shoulder tufts, usually distinct dorsal 
tufts, and prominent transverse tufts on the prothorax; abdomen 
with a line of dorsal tufts in some genera, and the males with more 
or less prominent anal tufts. The fore-wings are small, narrow, 
when at rest lie like a flat roof over the back; hind-wings broader, 
when at rest are folded so as to be covered by the fore-wings. 
The common name, Owlet Moths, is given them because they fly 
at night, though if molested they will fly a short distance in the 
day time. They are attracted by a light at night, and form a 
majority of the moths that are thus drawn to lamps in houses. 
The larvae are cylindrical, tapering somewhat from the middle 
toward each extremity, are striped and barred in various ways, and 
all but Catocala and a few allied genera have sixteen legs. The 
Catocala have fourteen legs and loop up the body when they walk, 
in a manner similar to the Geometrids. The chrysalides are sometimes 
in earthen cocoons under ground, at other times leaves or other sub¬ 
stances are fastened together by silk above the surface, while in 
other species the chrysalides are naked under grass or something for 
shelter, or are formed in the stock of the plant within which the 
caterpillar has lived. 
As a class, the caterpillars of the Owlet Moths are injurious to 
vegetation, though some of them living upon useless weeds need not 
be considered in the study of economic entomology. Among those 
that are seriously injurious are the various species of cut-worms, 
stalk-borers, etc. The beautiful moths of the genus Catocala find 
a large place in collectors’ cabinets, while the injury their larvae 
may do to trees is but little thought of. 
